AI6YR Ben5d ago

Okay, what is an "AI tool" doing that wasn't fixed by people handing someone a slip of paper with their name and phonetics at graduation?

Futurism: Students Boo and Jeer as AI Name-Reader Flops Spectacularly at College Graduation Ceremony

https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/ai-name-reader-flops-college-graduation

h/t @MikeElgan

#ai #graduation #college

Students Boo and Jeer as AI Name-Reader Flops Spectacularly at College Graduation Ceremony

A college president was booed after a generative AI tool tasked with reading graduating students' names completely bungled the job.

Futurism
Show threadAI6YR Ben

If you were a PERSON who did this, you'd be fired. You probably would never have been hired in the first place. This is typically where a faculty member would do the reading... Hashtag YOUHADONEJOB

#ai #snafu

May 19 at 4:54pmWeb
Show threadMegan Lynch (she/her)5d ago

@ai6yr This is just another example of what I've said in the face of AI propaganda that tries to claim that if you're anti-AI, you're anti-accessibility.

If tech cared about accessibility that much, you'd see it in their workplaces, their websites, their products, etc. The fact that people want AI to do it shows they care so little about designing and working accessibly that they want to outsource it to an automaton.

Likewise, students' names weren't important to admin.

#FuckAI

#Ableism

Show threadAI6YR Ben5d ago
@meganL What is most telling is they have started to abandon the whole premise of "we're not using AI to replace people, we're using AI to enhance productivity!" and just gone to "AI has allowed us to lay off a lot of workers!"
Show threadMegan Lynch (she/her)5d ago
@ai6yr And some of the tech writers here have said it's not even laying people off due to them not being needed. It's a way of covering up gross mismanagement. Sacking workers to save money when it's the fucking CEOs and top management who squandered the money.
Show threadStacey Cornelius 🇨🇦5d ago

@meganL @ai6yr This whole announcement thing is 100% unnecessary. What's the point? "Ooh look at us using technology because it's there!"

Gimmick much, university?

As an aside: Something that absolutely floored me was an Autistic person talking about how they used an LLM (speaking of accessibility) to translate neurotypical conversations in their workplace.

Which looks like accessibility on the surface, but riddle me this: How is it okay to hand someone who's already struggling in a system designed for other people a tool to make them put in even more work to navigate that same system, when the people who are benefitting from the system are doing... what, exactly?

Pardon me while I burst into flames.

Show threadArtsandSocks 🧶🪡5d ago
@ai6yr I went to a bilingual university ( French/English, this is Canada) The Dean read my name out in French, even though my card said English on it.
Show threadAI6YR Ben5d ago
@Artsandsocks Oops!
Show threadTaran Rampersad5d ago

@ai6yr it also says a lot about the graduates.

I would have refused to walk out unannounced.

So, no winners, mostly losers.

Show threadbjb  5d ago

@ai6yr

I must object to "hashtag YOUHADONEJOB"

The promise of "AI" is that it must be able to do all jobs. You can use one tool for all tasks without having to make multiple tools (i.e. program solutions for each thing). If "AI" cannot do all the jobs, then it is definitely not worth the environmental destruction that it causes.

I mean, it's not worth it anyways, but the case for it really falls apart when it cannot be a general purpose tool.

Show threadKrzysztof Sakrejda5d ago
@ai6yr my undergraduate college annoyed me plenty but they got a linguistics professor to do the graduation ceremony name announcements. He checked with each person at the rehearsal and it's one of the few times I heard my name pronounced correctly by a stranger. I still appreciate it 24 years later lol.
Show threadechopapa4d ago

@ai6yr

Depends in your university. A friend of mine studied at the university in Vienna, Austria. There were also graduation ceremonies (called "Sponsionsfeier". In Vienna there are also a lot of people from all around the world and the master of ceremonies wasn't able to correctly pronounce most of the names - with exception of German names. So half of the ceremony consisted of a "guess what person he is calling" game.